On our way off Kyanite though we managed to run across a space battle. Our scanners picked up a small cargo ship being shot to shit by a Pirate Cruiser. Now, this obviously wasn’t our fight, but we were feeling charitable, and we kind of wanted to test out the ships gunnery bay. Sarge was already half way to it when I confirmed we’d move in to help.
The Pirate ship was an older model cruiser, one of the now decommissioned FE9s. We swept in from the rear and opened fire on the Pirates. They responded fairly quickly rolling their hull and bringing the cannons to bear on The Stone Shark. We took some immediate damage and tried to manoeuvre back out of their fire arc. No dice. I only have myself to blame for such a stupid rookie-pilot error but there we were, far too close, inadvertently locked into a ‘Death Spiral’.
For those of you that have never had a void battle before the Death Spiral is where you’re boneheaded enough to draw alongside an enemy vessel and you both try to move to the opponents unprotected side. Both ships end up spiralling around each other and trading fire at near point blank range. Both ships tend to take massive damage until at least one of them is destroyed. You can’t break off either, because there’s no way to move out of the spiral without taking critical damage and exploding.
Our ship net is alive with crew calls. Doc screaming to keep the ship steady as he worked on the injured. Engineering yelling that the ship couldn’t keep taking this damage. Starburn in the nav pod beside me bellowing about course corrections and escape vectors. I’m gritting my teeth trying to hold the ship together and avoid the worst of the barrage. Void shields screeching as sections of them fail from enemy fire. The Stone Shark herself is groaning as the cannon fire blasts her hull, chunks rattling off into space. And over all of that though, Sarge and Wolf, down in the Gunnery bay, hollering like mad men, clearly having the time of their lives. I’ve never heard people having so much fun before.
The craziest thing though, was that if you took the childlike excitement out of it, the pair of them were functioning like the ridiculously capable battle veterans they are. Target vectors, ammo counts, power cell loads, range, gun condition, ship condition, enemy ship condition, all the vital info being traded in battle cant with total accuracy. They were absorbed in the battle in their own world, seemingly uncaring of what was happening beyond their area. And then, all of a sudden, calm as a pond on a still day it comes across the ship net. Sarge’s voice, “Pilot. Gunnery. Reverse ship rotation 5m/s in 3. 2. 1. Now.”
I’ve learned to trust my crew implicitly, so when that came through, I reversed the ship rotation as directed. 2 seconds later the Pirate cruiser exploded into a million shards of metal rain glinting in the light from the system’s star. It was beautiful.
It transpired that Sarge and Wolf had been raking the Pirate cruiser with specific pin point fire. They had not, despite appearances, been blasting away like trigger happy children. No. They had assessed how much damage the cruiser could send our way, how much The Stone Shark could take, and gambled that they were better void fighters. They hid their intentions so well that nobody, not even me, noticed that approximately 60% of their shots targeted a specific area of the cruiser. They overloaded it’s shields, stripped the armour off, and then, at the right moment, sent an explosive round with sniper-level precision through the enemy hull and into the ship’s fuel cells. Hence, explosion. I knew those two were really good, I just don’t think I ever appreciated how good until now.
We radioed to the cargo vessel which was starting to get itself back together. They thanked us for the assistance and sent over what they could spare as thanks. We picked up 100 creds, going to need that for the repairs after the battle.
As we headed out of the system and into open space we were able to check on the loot we picked up from the planet surface. We’d grabbed a Dark Energy Crystal and a Holographic Projector. Not exactly the best swag. Pretty handy for the right crew, just not for us. There was a supply station on the system rim. We were pulling in there anyway and Starburn said he knew some folk that would happily trade for them. Got a good price on the sale, 350credits total. That bagged us 450credits for the whole run.
That should keep us flying for a while, and that’s what it’s all about. A ship, a crew, a job, and the next horizon.
Stargrave is published by Osprey Games and was created by Joseph A. McCullough